Chercher de camp de concentration , faire de menage, un fort et Metz

Watch towers Natzwillerp-Struthof

On Tuesday I went looking for the Natzwiller-Stuthof Concentration Camp.  Its location was not in my Navman and the resolution of my Northern France map was not good enough either, all I had were some roads to take and apparently some signs.  I knew the road I had to take was from Obernai and I assumed the Camp would be on the flat somewhere near the Rhine so I went east along the right road.  Could not have been more wrong!  Eventually after seeing a good part of the area around Obernai I tried another tourist guide and finally saw where it was.  It was in fact in the middle of the Vosges.  So up a few hills and after more wrong turns I finally found it.  The camp is the only Concentration Camp on French soil, although the Nazi’s of course believed that Alsace was part of Germany anyway.  It was where many French people, and others, ended their lives after being worked to death in a quarry for pink stone that Albert Speer wanted for his buildings. There were also a number of executions carried out.  The number killed there is around 15,000. What I did not realise was that this was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz although death was a likely outcome if you came to such a place.

The camp is still surrounded by barbed wire and the watch towers that were there over sixty years ago.  One of the barracks where the prisoners slept housed the museum and it was chilling reminder to get sense of the inhumanity that fellow human beings can have to one another.  The crematorium was still there along with the medical facility where several doctors would carry out experiments on prisoners using typhus and other particularly nasty gases etc. then dissect them.  There was a room for gassing prisoners to death which was done to meet the needs of the Nazi University in Strasbourg.  They even had a room for executing prisoners where the blood could drain away.  Such institutionalisation of death is almost beyond comprehension.  In another barrack there were the punishment cells and a rack on which they got beaten.

I sometimes wonder whether it is good to keep such reminders particularly since I come from far away where we were spared such awful things.  It reminded me that as a child growing up how much of WW2 hung over us.  Friends’ fathers had been to war and the comic we read were about the heroics of the allies.  At the same time we were informed about the atrocities and the murderous regime of the Nazis.  For me it is like seeing first-hand the reality of what those men and women who were caught and put in concentration camps had to endure.  They were really brave; particularly the partisans and those who worked against the regime.  Knowing that if they were caught that a life of hell or death awaited them did not deter.  It made me wonder whether our present policy makers have ever thought about the effectiveness of prison.

Place Kleber for drinks and protest

It was quite late by the time I had wandered around the camp so I headed back to Strasbourg as I wanted to get a 3G dongle so that when I did not have access to the internet through my accommodation I would still have it.

I went to a SFR store as they seemed to have the best and easiest deal (part of Vodafone I think) and asked for the prepayee 3G cle.  No, they did not have one I was told in French.   I went away for a bit and then thought I had better find out some more and explained in French that I had seen on the internet that they had them available .  Yes they do I was told but not at that store and to go the store in centre-ville and they should have them.  So I did, and they did but the guy kept talking to me in English rather than doing it in French.  Never mind! 

Afterwards I had a beer outside in the warmth of the late setting sun.  Just as I was peaceably having my beer there was an eruption a couple of tables away from a woman who then screeched away in French about something I could not make out.  The servers took it very calmly got their money and she headed off still screeching away about some injustice.

Yesterday morning was my last.  I spent the morning cleaning the flat and finishing my packing.  The proprietor came around about 11am and we had a brief chat about the apartment which he was happy about.  He is a policeman in Kayserberg about 70 kilometres south of Strasbourg.

I called in at IKEA which was not far away from the apartment (if driving).  What an amazing place.  We do not have anything like it in New Zealand.  The quality is quite good and you basically get anything for the home you can think of, from kitchens to other household furniture.  One of the things I noticed is that the design is superb, in a way that I don’t think that we do it in NZ.  For instance the chairs one might get for a lounge are not the big chunky things we seem to only be able to buy but much more elegant and less imposing. 

Tunnel in fort

Leaving Strasbourg I headed for one of the Maginot Line forts.  Fort de Schoenenburg near Hunspach.  It was a subterranean rabbit warren and I must walked a two or more kilometres looking around at the engineering but also at what had last been used about 71 years ago. 

It was getting late and I wanted to get to Metz so I decided to take the motorway, an hour less in time than taking the non-tolled roads.  It was an interesting and fast road.  It was so much easier doing it this little C3 than the petrol engined Fiat I had last time I was here.  It roared along at 130km an hour without too much fuss. At one point the heavens opened and there was flash flooding on the roads and I had to really slow down or I would have been aquaplaning.  It would have been really nice to have been driving my Golf on these roads. In NZ we don’t get a chance to really open out the car.  I must say though that cars are travelling slower than they were even 18 months ago.

In Metz I found a hotel that had been recommended in Lonely Planet guide, and got the last room because some person had not returned after saying they were going to take it. It is small but comfortable.  I had a more expensive dinner than usual including a crème brulee which was a disappointment because they had split the custard. 

Today I am going to look around Metz and then perhaps go north into Luxembourg or into Germany and the Moselle river area.